Here's How Much Hidden Sugar Is In Your Food

Added sugar in our diet is a very recent phenomenon and only
occurred when sugar, obtained from sugar cane, beet and corn,
became very cheap to produce. It's a completely unnecessary part
of our calorie intake: it has no nutritional value, gives no
feeling of fullness and is acknowledged to be a major factor in causing obesity and diabetes
both in the UK and worldwide.

The food industry is adding more and more sugar to food, which
consumers are largely unaware of, as it is mostly hidden.

While it may not be surprising that a can of Coca Cola has a
staggering nine teaspoons of sugar (35g), similar amounts can be
found in the most unlikely of foods, including flavoured water
(Volvic Touch of Fruit Lemon/Lime 27.5g per 500ml), yogurts (Yeo
Valley Family Farm 0% Fat Vanilla Yogurt 20.9g per 150g pot),
canned soup (Heinz Classic Tomato Soup 14.9g per 300g portion),
ready meals (Pot Noodle Curry King Pot, 7.6g per portion) and
even bread (Hovis Soft White Bread, 1.4g in one medium-sized
slice).

You might opt for 0% fat in your yoghurt but what if it also
comes with five teaspoons of sugar? Or how about these:

Action on Sugar

It's clear this sugar plays a part in soaring levels of obesity
and diabetes. To this end, leading health experts from across the
globe have united to tackle – and to unmask hidden sugar so
consumers can make informed decisions about what they eat and
drink.

It follows a similar model to salt reduction pioneered by
Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH), which has been
successful in compelling companies and manufacturers to add less
salt to products over a period of time by setting targets for the
food industry and mobilising public information.

Salt content in food products in the supermarkets have now been
reduced by 20-40% and as a result, salt intake has fallen in the
UK by 15% (between 2001-2011), the lowest known figure of any developed country.
According to the National Institute for Health and Care
Excellence (NICE), this will have reduced stroke and heart attack
deaths by a minimum of 9,000 per year, with a saving in health
care costs of at least £1.5bn a year.

A similar programme of gradually reducing the amount of added
sugar in food and drink products, with no substitution in food,
could prove to be an equally effective and practical way of
reducing added sugar in the UK diet. As with salt, a 20-30%
reduction in sugar added to food and soft drinks could be
achieved over the course of five years, and result in a reduced
calorie intake of approximately 100kcal a day, going some way to
help reverse obesity rates.

There are several parallels between salt and sugar. Like salt,
most of the sugar we consume is hidden in processed food and soft
drinks. There are also specific taste receptors for sugar, which
if sugar intake is gradually reduced become more sensitive. So
over time we don't notice that sugar levels have gone down.

If we can persuade the Department of Health that this programme
is very likely to help considerably with the obesity epidemic,
and in particular to reduce childhood obesity, while also
reducing the incidence of dental disease, and (very likely) the
number of people developing Type 2 diabetes, it should have a
good chance of success.

Graham MacGregor set up and is Chairman of both Consensus
Action on Salt and Health (CASH) and World Action on Salt and
Health (WASH). He is also chairs the Blood Pressure Association,
sits on the board for the World Hypertension League and recently
served as President of The British Hypertension Society